‘wet * 8 ca Po 
ea? bas ay conceanine 1 THE ae 


* 4 . si oe € ms ra : * Se te 


= - = ey Se ye 
a | - htoat 0 OF Gop AND THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 


Pkg a ee ae yee. j 
* QUARTERLY CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR, 


iat 5 ee SO we hdd r September, 1833. he 


“ 


BOgTON® soa 0: 
COREWeREE 


ae 


Ps ee aoe 
> et Sve a 
: yo a 
eat 


™ : * 
#2, Mees es : 


REVIEW, &c. 


In the appearance of this volume, we have another significant 
token, that Unitarianism, on this side of the Atlantic as well as on 
the’other, is rapidly fulfilling the predictions of the friends of the 
bible. It is advancing, in the full blazonry of unbelief, to de- 
structions It was necessary that before its final death-struggle, it 
should for a while assume its true character ; as the Evil Spirits 
are said, in God’s word, to have torn the men possessed, before 
they came out. Here is another stride towards the gloomy gulf 
of open infidelity ; and this volume might more appropriately have 
been entitled, 4 statement of Reasons why Unitarians ought to 
be considered as Infidels and not Christians. We are glad on 
the whole, that the work of making this statement, has fallen into 
the hands of so genuine a Neologist, and rejecter of God’s word, 
as Professor Norton. We call him a rejecter of God’s word ; nor 
will our readers esteem the phrase inappropriate, if they open his 
book, and behold the cool indifference, with which he strikes out 
epistle after epistle from the sacred canon, whenever its richness 
and fullness of “heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” are too power- 
fully contrasted with the meager, death-like phantom of his own 
‘‘ Reasons for not believing.” He has treated the bible, and the — 
character of Jesus with such cool, anatomizing infidelity, that all 
but those initiated and confirmed in the heathen irreligion of the 
sect, must, we think, be startled into salutary reflection. Such, 
if we are rightly informed, is already the case with some ; and 
we hope the extent of infidelity, to which he has proceeded in his 
«‘ Statement,” may prove the means of awakening to a conviction 
of their error a multitude of others, who have hitherto slumbered 
in the dreadful delusion of Unitarianism. 

It is by no means our intention to review this book in detail. 
As an attack on the doctrine of the trinity, it contains nothing in 
the way of argument, which is likely to disturb the faith of any in- 
telligent believer. But like most of Mr. Norton’s productions, it 
is marked by a tone of insolence and contempt towards the great 
body of the christian public, which not only justifies, but demands 
the very plain language which we mean to use, in exposing 
the real nature and tendency of his speculations. As a speci- 
men of the language which he thinks it decent to adopt, we select 
the following passage from many Of a similar kind. ‘In urging 
such obvious arguments as.these there is*: humiliating conscious- 
ness of the weakness of the cayse we are opposing. One may 


4 


feel as if he were wasting reasoning upon a subject unworthy of 
it; as if his remarks implied a want of common intelligence in 
his readers; as if he were exposed to the same ridicule, as he 
who should gravely and earnestly labor the proof of an undenia- 
ble proposition.” p. 214. | | 
When one or two more volumes like this shall have issued from. 
the mint of modern Unitarianism, with prefaces that have the un- 
blushing impudence to assert in the face of all the intelligent world, 
that the great doctrine of the trinity has become obsolete, and that 
‘tan allusion to it, occurring in any discussion, written or oral, not 
purely seetarian, would be regarded as a trait of fanaticism ;”—when 
our American literature shall be infested with a few more such 
volumes, pretending in all our shops to be the only safe remedy 
extant against infidelity, and under pretense of making the bi- 
ble a book which infidels can believe, destroying all its spirituality 
and undermining our confidence in its sacred authority,—it will 
then be time for another work like that of Leland on the Deistieal 
Writers, to come forth on a similar expedition and crush them at a 
grasp. Mr. Norton himself promises to,enrich the precious col- 
lection in the “‘ hortys siccus of dissent,” by the publication of his 
own attack, (which he partly concocted long since, and perhaps 
will finish speedily, that the world may be rid of one great obstacle 
in the way of the doctrine of the trinity’s becoming ‘ obsolete,’) 
on the canonical authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
Perhaps also he will live to furnish the world with the evidence of 
his opinion, that the second epistle of Peter, is not the work of 
that apostle. It may be, moreover, that in his anxiety to relieve 
all men’s consciences as well as his own, of the unwarrantable 
burden of divine truth, which has so long weighed upon them, 
he may enlighten us with’ the grounds of his belief, that the 
Apocalypse is not the work of St. John. After all this is accom- 
plished, the author of the “‘ Statement of Reasons for not believ- 
ing,” will perhaps have discovered some convenient mode of shuf- 
fling the first eighteen verses of the first chapter of the gospel of 
John, among his list of passages interpolated or corrupted. He has 
already exhibited an ingenuity of translation which would put Gil- 
bert Wakefield himself to the blush, and may perhaps suggest to the 
minds ofsome ofthe sect,the expediency ofan improved version,even 
of the Improved Version itself. ~ If he could succeed in putting the 
ban of interpolation and corruption on these troublesome words of the 
beloved disciple, it would certainly be as plausible a process, as that 
hitherto unheard of resort, the use of the English word power, as a 
translation of the Greek word togos! Admirable specimen of Exe- 
gesis! Itisoutdone,however,in several instances in thissame volume. 
Indeed the eagerness with which the Unitarians have thrown them- 
selves into the unbounded field of gratuitous conjecture, speculation, 
insertions, and alterations at will, in the interpretation of the scrip- 


te 
ce) 


tures, would of itself be enough to throw strong suspicion on a 
theological system which needs to hebolstered | up by such misera- 
'. ble support... 

! Before: the author of the “ Staientohih ie asons for not beliay- 
ing,” * shall he able to enlighten the public i in regard to the propri- 
ety, intellicence, politeness, and excellence of unbelief, (in regard 
to its imnocency they 1 have. already been instructed and liberalized) 
Unitarianism in this country, we believe, will have shared the fate 
of Unitarianism in England; and in “speaking of it we shall have 
to use the language of the ‘author. of. the Nataral Histor ry < a En- 
thusiasm. eee Meat eS 


see Were “4 ied how far fick Siuniee error NOW Abi ae promul- 
gation ‘and progress of thé gospel, it would be impossible to make so 
small a matier palpable i in-our reply.«.Lo affirm that the great prineiples 
of religion are at present: eudangered by the feeble and: ‘expiring’ remains 
of Socintanism, were much the same asto say, that the throne and con- 
stitution of Britain is*in jeopardy. by the. lumeang, attachment. of, the peor 


~~ ple to the house of Stuart 1? - 


« The contrary is the fact. “We ¢ are ‘strenethened by t he. ‘puny. ge _ 
sy, that yet gasps here and. there; about us. The modern history, the 
“fate, and the pres sentiactual con: lition of the doctrine absurdly cal led Rieke 
tarlanism, is quite eno ich’ to convince any man of Sense, that the scep- 
tical argument ts a ‘there sophismy. even if he ‘knew nothing of the merits 
of the question. And this edifying history and spectacle, does in fact 
produce a proper effect 1 upon the minds of men, and does a actually seal’ the 
_ theological argument as it ought... Is Unitarianism christianity ? Read 
the story of its rise in. modern times, of its progress and decay, and look 
at the meager phantom as it now beunts the ay pieeer its has retired to! 
fs this pitifal shadow . ety istias ality #7 P fe 


From Profeskor N orton’ 3 sinnes how inktandins our remem- 
brance of such names ‘as Bacon, and Boyle, Hale, Mackintosh and 
Hall, we. should certainly. be led to think, that there never was, 
‘nor can now be found, an intelligent Trinitarian i in existence ; and 
that “all the departments of polite literature, moral science, and 
natural religion” have, by common consent, been baptized into the 
liberalizing and vapid negations of ‘Unitarianism.. On this point, 
a‘septence from Burke will commend itself to our readers. ‘“Be= 
cause half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern, make the field’ ring 
‘with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, re- 
posed beneath the shadows. of the British oak, chew their cud and _ 
are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are 
the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in 
number ; or thaty after all, they are other than: the little shrivelled, 
meager, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.” 
if Mr.. Norton wishes to find one of the ear rliest notices of his own 
sect in “any department of polite literature,” * we susgest ‘for his 
consideration, Burke’s speech on the petition of the Unitarians ; -€S- 


6. 


pecially. that passage of it which contains the following sentence: 
“This is the first time that our records of parliament have had, or 
our experience or history given, an account of any religious congre- 
gation or association, known by the name which these petitioners 
have assumed.” It is curious to observe that at.this early period, ~ 
the elements of Unitarian zeal were as clearly analyzed as they 
can be even now. ‘ It is somewhat remarkable” says Burke in 
‘the Reflections on the Revolution, speaking of Dr. Price, “ that 
this reverend divine should be so earnest for setting up new 
churches, and so perfectly indifferent concerning the doctrine which 
may be taught in them. His zeal is of a curious character. It is 
not for the propagation of his own opinion, but of any opin- 
ions. It is not forthe diffusing of truth, but for the spreading of | 
contradiction. Let the noble teacher but dissent, and it is no 
matter from whom or from whats This great pomt once secured, 
it is taken for granted their religion will be rational and manly.” 
Their religion Robert Hall has admirably described as“ an ex- 
hausting. process.” “ It consists. in affirming, that the writers of 
the new. téstament»were not, properly speaking, inspired, nor m- 
fallible guides in divine’ matters; that Jesus Christ did not die for 
our sins, nor is the proper object of worship, nor even impeceable ; 
that there is nof any provision made in the ‘sanctification of the 
Spirit for the aid of spiritual weakness, or the cure of spiritual mal- 
adies; that we have sof an-intercessor at the right hand of God ; 
that Christ is mot present with his*saints, nor his saints when they 
quit the body, present with the Lord; that man is no¢ composed 
of a material and immaterial principle ; but consists merely of. or- 
‘ganized matter, which js totally dissolved at death. To look for- 
elevation of moral sentiment from such a series of pure negations, — 
would be to gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles,—to ex- 
tract sunbeains from a.cucumber.?) = eye 
To this statement of “not believing,” this catalogue of negations, — 
we may add from the volume before us, that Jesus Christ. did not 
exist before he was born into this world, or in other words, that 
he was not really before Abraham, that be had not glory with the 
Father before the world was, (p. 169-75 ;) that He has not now 
any superintendence over the concerns of his followers, (p. 163 ;) 
that where two or three are gathered together in his name, h€ is 
not there in the midst of them, (p..159;) that the examples of. 
prayer to Christ in the new testament can not be considered as 
affording any example or authority for prayer to Christ under or- 
dinary circumstances, (p. 160;) that he is not personally present 
~ with his disciples, (p. 163.;) that he has not gone to prepare a place 
for them, (p.202;) that he is notthe judge of all, (p. 212 ;) that he 
will not personally come in the glory of his Father with. his holy 
angels, to render to every man according to his deeds, (p. 204 ;) 
that His language respecting his own future coming and judgment 


x ‘ - iy 


of men, was not understood a his own apostles, (p. 2125) that 
this language is a scenical representation, (p. 212 ;) that the apos- 
tles taught gross errors, ‘ St. Paul had fallen into a mistake,” (p. 
300 ;) that Paul did. not ‘write the Epistle” to the Hebrews; that 
Peter did not write the second of his own Epistles ; ‘that John did 
not write the Apocalypse ; ‘that the christianity of revelation does 
not teach men any truths which they might not learn from mere 


natural religion ; and to all this we may add, the explicit declaration 


of Mr. Norton elsewhere; “that the canonical books of the new tes- 
tament are Nov. ‘the revelation which God made by Christ.” . The 
volume that contains such negations, in the form of Statements 
for not Believing, deserves, better than the Deist 'Tindal’s book, 
the title “ Christianity as old as the. Creation.” Deism, as dis. 
tinguished . from. Atheism, Robert Hall remarks truly, embraces. 


* almost every: thing which the Unitarians profess to believe. 


And now our readers may be ready to ask, ‘ In the name of all 
thatis sacred, what do they believe, after having rejected such an 
accumulation ‘of, ‘revealed trath ? We ‘will let Professor Norton 
stand at the bar, and make his solenm answer, 


oe: ie Es 


ie Christianity, WE BELIEVE, has iaiighe men to know God, ait has 


revealed him as the Father of ae Brodtaten. It has made Luswh his 


infinite perfections, his providence, and his moral government. It has 


directed us to look up to Him as the Being, on whom we and all things are 


entirely dependent, and to look up to Him with pertect confidence 
and love. It has made known to us- that we are to live forever ; 
it has brought life and immortality to. light. “Man was a. creature of 
this earth, and it has raised him to a far nobler rank, and taught him to 
regard himself as an immortal being, the child of God. It calls the 


- sinner to reformation and hope. elt, “affords to virtue the highest possi- 


ble sanctions. It. gives: to sorrow itss bést, and" often, its only conso- 
lation. It presents us, in the life of our ‘great Master, with an exam- 


ple of that moral perfection, which is to be the constant object of our 


exertions.  It_has established the truths which it teaches upon evidence 
the most satisfictory, It is a most glorious display of the Deity, and 


‘of his care for the beings of this earth. It has lifted the veil which 
: separated God from his creatures, and th Sha life from eternity. 1, pp-289,290. 


Here i is the creed of Wiens a all the world hear. They 
say we BeLirve! In the very Statement of Reasons for not 
Believing, they” have at. length uttered. a believing affirmation | 
The oracle has spoken. ) ne 


& Leave, oh. leave me, to-repose | i” ae oe 


"And what has it spoken ?- “Most lame ‘and’ impotent. conclusion ! - 
Not one solitary syllable in reoard tova Savior, nor the most dist- 
ant intimation that in all God’s plan thee ts one! If we could 
not select from the works of Plato, a creed at least equal in rich- 
ness and elevation of sentiment, andl more nearly approximating to 


8 


divine truth, we are sadly mistaken. We say, more nearly ap- 
proximating to divine truth; for we could find in Plato no doubt- 
ful recognition of the truths of man’s depravity, the malignity of 
sin, and the certainty of a future retribution. But these are things 


which Unitarians do not love to dwell upon, ‘The shrinking soul, 
oppressed with a sense of guilt, looks round in anguish for a. mEDI-. 


ator between God and man; but the idea of a mediator, is one 
which the Unitarians'seem perfectly to abhor. ‘They thank God 
they can come into God’s presence without a mediator. No won- 


der, then, that their system excludes every thing which would lead. 


the aa ies the couviction of its guilt, and: the search for an atone- 
_ ment, and therefore every thing peculiar: to the gospel ;—the de- 
pravity of man, the inGnite evil of sin, the oreat day of jude ement, 


an Almighty ee okt would asl the critical ingenuity we 


Professor N orton Himsert to discover in this creed of Unitarianishi, 
the slightest traces of these fundamental truths. Indeed, its pov- 
erty Is “such as Plato would shave pitied, and the very ‘Deist, in 
reference to its preteysions to. haye come from: revelation, would 
scorn. ; 


And yet hie stale and. Kicless ees “eeltion Paine himself would 


probably have accepted without the slightest amelioration’ either. 
in his intellect or heart, from which all mention of a Savior is stu-" 


diously. exeluded, and- which, even as’ an: exposition of natural 


religion 1s Sneffably weak and. cul, -less, this is the vaunted remedy 


for infidelity ! | This is to be substituted for Jesus Christ and him 


crucified, and offered to the expecting nations as the sole product 
of all the wonders of Poste 1. But no: we mistake : it will 
not be offered to the nations: Unitarianism bas no missionaries, 
cannot support one. We are thankful that it is impossible aor this 
delusion and the missionary spirit, to live together. 


It-is not strange that the admirers of this system think it will 


suit infidels. ‘Voltaire himself would have received it as the only 
creed fora gentleman, ridiculing nothing about it but its preten- 


sions to evel ation Te does. ‘suit infidels. Tt ds a creed which the 


unregenerate, unbelieving: heart craves. Mr. Norton is perfectly 


right in believing, that when all the peculiar doctrines of the bible ~ 


are blotted out, and its spirituality: explamed away, there will then 


no longer be jnfidéls.- ‘True; there will be nothing left to dis- 
believe, nothing for infidelity to fasten on. There willno longer be 


any opportunity for exercising the power of dissent. And when 
this is the case, what will Beton of that religion whose whole ex- 
istence is#manyfested in unbelief, and whose very creéd consists in 
Statements df Reasons for not believing? The millennium of re- 
lease from the bondage of orthodoxy, to swehich the Professor so de- 
voutly aspires, will be the signal for the extinction of a sect that 


lives. by disbelieving § * since there will then be no proposition to, 


reject or contend against, and. therefore no one pele of union: 


» 


ors life. » Other priliciple they have none, than that of negation. 
Antagonism to orthodoxy is their sole principle of vitality. 

LAs we said before, we have no intention of examining this vol- 
- ume in detail, for it carries with it its own refutation. One or two 
~ points in its tenor we will touch upon, and then proceed to the con- 
sideration of some principles, of which every individual, who wish- 
es to discover, and not to evade and do away, the meaning of the 
bible, must acknowledge the reasonableness and authority. 

Mr. Norton’s preparations to undeceive his readers in regard to - 
those passages of scripture which directly contradict his theory, and 
which they have always’ been accustomed to interpret according to 
- their plain meaning, are truly amusing. . On every such occasion 
he is compelled toa 1 preliminall y movement, thus: In order to com- 
prehend corr rectly the purport of this ‘mistaken passage, we must 
_-consider—that it is very difficult to know wnat the bible does mean ; 

that: it is very liable to be misunderstood ; that its expressions are 
‘figurative, and that their explanation is to be found in analagous 
metaphors, the meaning of which is obvious ; and that, however 
- bold some of them may appear, they do not transcend the genius 
of the oriental style. Or thus: We must not explain this pas- 
_ sage literally, for if we did, it would téach the divinity of Christ, 
and this would “involve an absurdity, and a contradiction to what 
is. elsewhere said by the Evangelist, ;” wherefore, it is, “ unques- 
tionable,” that the literal interpretation, ‘cannot be admitted.” 
Or thus: It is very manifest that this passage cannot mean what 
its language: evidently implies 5 for, it would*be. contrary to reason, 
and to.all, our preconceived notions of things: in order to know 
what it- does mean, we must rernember the oriental forms” of 
speech, and put it into a ‘metaphor, — Or thus: We shall err here, 
if we do not bear in mind. the peculiar philosophical views of the 
Jews, and their mistakes about the character of the Messiah. We 
must temember that they applied : a great many passages from the 
_ old testament to Christ, and-so did bis own disciples and the apos- 
tles under his teaching, which ought not to have been so applied. . 
Or thus ; The passage we are now to. consider, seems difficult, it is 
true ; “but we must remember that the apostles were liable to error, 
and. this passage contains a mistake of theirs, which ‘ their Master,’ 
being engaged about so many other things, had no time to correct. 
Or thus:.We are not to suppose that in this passage the apostle in- 
tended to be understood. according to his ‘obvious. meaning ; his 
real meaning was probably this, etc. etc. ete: _ 

“Into all these awkward predicameits, the Livia are Firiven: 
not to explain, but to explain away God’s word. 'They make the 
bible a book, which needs another revelation; to prevent us from 
understanding it according to its. plain import. “To all this la- 
horious and perplexing array: of peculiar. circumstances,’’ and 
‘« Jewish errors,” and “traditionary delusions,” and dribblings of 


10° © 


criticism about the * oriental style,’ -and “ tnetaphors,” and <<‘ fig- 
ures of speech,” and apostolic “ mistakes,” which our Savior. did 
not think it worth while to correct, they are compelled, in order to 
keep an unprejudiced reader from running into the orthodox faith at - 
every step. And all this i in regard toa book, which God represents 
to be “a light shining in a dark place,”’ a book intended to be 80 
‘plain, that “a way-faring man, though a fool, need not err therein ;” a 
a book, which, if we permit it to. ‘shine without: restraint, proves 
always in every part of it, “a light to our feet anda lamp | to our . 
paths ;” and a book of w hich the holiest and wisest of men have 
always regarded the most simple, unlearned, and unelaborate inter- 
pretation, to be’the safest and the best. ‘This book they dare not. 
permit any one to- ‘read, except through the fog and. haze of 
their own cautionary speculations. It is indeed curious to observe 
a set of intepreters, whose efforts are directed}. not to elicit the. 
truth, but to proyide a shield for its blaze, in ‘metaphors and figures 
of speech and unfortunate mistakes of the apostles: a set of critics, 
whose labor is, to prevent the world: from: understanding the bible 
according to ‘its obvious. Amport : whose anxiety is not to explain ; 
the bible, but to unspiritualize it, diminish its ‘authority, fillit with: 
errors, and turn it into amass of fables. ‘We hold up such efforts to 
the scorn and indignation of all who venerate the inspired volume. 
One or two points more, and we have done with this volume, except 
as the principles we shall suewest fort the consideration of our readers, 
do of themselves refute and condemn it. Mr, Norton doesnot believe 
that Christ will judge the: world. Our Savior’ s own language in — 
regard to this solemn subject, he thinks was nothmg but a “ fig- 
ure of speech,”” a bold metaphor. © Yet he acknowledges that the 
apostles did belieye and teach that Christ will judge the world. - 
Notwithstanding this belief however, he thinks they, were so hon-_ 
est, as to have “recorded nothing more on this subject, as. from the 
lips of Christ, than’what he really uttered. “Wonderful i integrity ! : 
And as this language, Mr. Norton thinks, can be so construed as not 
to refer to His being our final judge; such ‘conduct in the apostles 
proves, to his mind, that they had no intention to. deceive! For~ 
otherwise, “ they would have made their master say what they 
themselves have said, in language : as. explicit as theirown!””?  “_An 
ERROR of the oy prow, the” ee fe their _feith Ei 
P pee . 


ee 


s a Daniel! te yea, a & Daniel come ‘to eee igen. a * 


Mr. Norton exhibits such rare talent’) inthis kind oh arauinenit 5 or 
the credibility of the gospel ‘history, that we cannot but suggest 
the consecration of his critical acumen to the preparation of a 
work on the veracity of the: writers.. And we will state the prop- 
~ osition which we thmk him eminently calculated to support. The 
veracity of the Apostles is ina ratio directly proportionate to the 


li, 


number of errors-they taught, and the grossness of their misunder- 
standing of Christ’s words. Or, in. other language, In. propor- 
tion as the Apostles mistook the Savior, and taught contrary to the 
truth, in that proportion they are worthy to be believed: 
_ We will here. exhibit one or» two additional examples of the 
manner in which Professor Norton explains away the scriptures. 


“ia 


But first we will quote the following passage from the learned 'Tit- 
mann, in regard to imept mterpretation. (Biblical Repository, 
It is exhibited when a sentiment is obtruded upon a writer, 
which is alike foreign tosljs constant manner of speaking and think- 
‘ing, and-to his intentiOn and object. As if one should say that 
Paul,in Eph.1: 7, tn, whom we have redemption through his blood, 
the forgweness of sins, had in mind the system of christian doc- 
trme ; and we should go on’ to interpret’ redemption through his 
_~ blood, etc., of a deliverance frorn sin which is effected by this doc- 
_trine, confirmed by the death of Christ. Such interpretation is sup- 
ported neither by the manner in which the apostle is accustomed — 
to speak of the death of Christ, nor by the object of the writer, 
nor the method of the whole discussion, nor by the mode of think- 
ing among the christians io whom the apostles wrote ; unless the ut- 
most violence be put upon the words.” a. eS 

- We return to Mr-N. Christ says, Where two or three are met to- 
gether in my name, THERE AM I IN THE MiIDst’or THEM. Hearour 
expounder, “ By the latter words our Savior did not mean to affirm 
_ that he would be present with them to hear their prayers, which would 
be inconsistent with the words preceding.—His purpose was to declare 
that the designs, labors, and prayers, in which his followers might 
unite for the promotion of his-cause, would be equally blessed with 
his own.” —p. 159. In another place, p. 202, 203. “ By this our 
Savior intended that the prayers of his followers—would be granted. 
as. if—he himself were praying with them.” Again, Paul exhorts. 
the Colossians to. forgive each other, “as: Christ has forgiven 
them,” Hear our. expounder. “Not referring to any forgiveness 
from Christ in person.” —p. 198. Again, Paul says, ‘Jesus. Christ, 
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” Our expounder says, “In- 
tending by those words to express the: unchangeableness of: chris- 
tian truth.”—p. 199. ‘* In hike manner, when he declares, that he | 
has come “ to save the world,” he refers to the power of his reli- 
gion in delivering men,’ ete.—p. 200. . Again, “in my Father’s 
house are many mansions. If it were-not so, I would have told 
you. L go to preparea place for you.” ete. Our expounder says of 
this precious promise; ‘‘ When Jesus thus speaks of preparing a 
place for his disciples, and after preparation returning to take them 
with him,—the meaning is, Your future blessedness will be as great, 
and is as certain, as af it were prepared for you by me,” etc. p. 
202. Again, “The son of man shall come in the glory of his fa- 


ie fant) e 


as 


a 


ther, with his hol y angels, and then shall he renderto every one ac- 
cording to his deeds.” Hear our expounder, “ Angels were con- 
ceived of by the Jews as ministers. of God’s providence ; and Christ, 
conforming his language to their conceptions, repeated! y speaks of 
the ministry of angels, figuratively, to devote some manifestation of - 
the power of God. Thus he tells Nathaniel, “Ye shall see heaven 
opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son 
of man ;” meaning, Ye shall witness manifest proof of, the relation 
existing between God and me his minister’ When our Savior 
speaks of his coming with the glory of God and his angels, he does 
not.mean by these figures to’ express thatfg will himself appearin | 
person,” etc. p. 204. It isa gross and violent insult, thus to deal 
with the sacred-volame. “82° " 3.5. ee ee oe 
We did not mean to tax the patience of our readers 


ay | Jen ers any farther ; 
yet we cannot dismiss the volime without calling their attention, 
(should they meet with it,) to the passage from page 319 to 323, 
as containing one of the most presumptuous eriticisms on the mo- 
tives and teaching of our Savior, that we remember cver to have » 
met with. Professor N orion does not believe in the existence and 
agency of fallen spirits. The apostles, he acknowledges, did; and 
the Lord Jesus sanctioned: and ¢onfiemed this belief. Mr. Norton 
asks why: he did. this, when he must have known it was false !! 
He then goes on to answer, that “if he had taught the truth , he 
would immediately have been denounced by his enemies ;”. that 
their error on this point was connected with errors on many other 
subjects, in regard to which it was in vain for Christ to think of en- 
lizhtening his ignorant and prejudiced hearers, which, however he 
must have done, had he attempted to teach-them the truth in re- 
gard to the great point in question! Moreover, Mr. Norton thinks 
that in. the cause of truth, “ the language. of error may be used, 
in order powerfully to affect the feelmgs ;” and he represents Christ 
as doing this, our blessed Savior as sanctioning and. confirming the 
errors of the Jews, “ because no other modes of speech would have 
go powerfully affected their mimds!!” He who is the way, the 
TRUTH, and the life, teaching-error that good may come! ‘The 
system which demands such speculations as these im its support, 
betrays its parentage at oncé: it is of its Father, the Devil.* 

“Mr. Norton remarks on the application by the Jews and the 
apostles, of many old testament predictions and types to the Mes- 
siah, “* One is surprised, perhaps, that this mistake was not cor~ 


rected by Christ.”  ‘« But would you have had hitn at the same 


*In the following passage, we have one ay the most striking exhibitions of the’ 
cold-blooded infidelity of Mr. Norton. ‘¢ Supposing that Thomas had believed, - 


.- and asserted, that his Master was God himself; tn what way should this affect our 


faith. 2” p. 226. The belief then of one of the disciples respecting an essential — 
“doctrine, anda declaration of that belief made publicly to Christ himself, and re} 
ceived by him with marked approbation, would, have ho influence to change 
the opinion of Mr. N.!! Could Paine have said more? 


13 

time teach the whole art-of interpretation?’ ‘‘ To enable his hear- 

ers to become skillful expositors of the old testament,” (our read-— 
ers will bear in mind that Christ is declared to have expounded 

to the disciples, in all the scriptures, “ the things concerning him- 

self,’ and this was the way undoubtedly in which they became such 

skillful expositors of the old testament,) “ he must have settled the 

-yet disputed questions - concernmg the age, the authorship, 

‘the authority, and wHar Has BEEN CALLED the- inspiration, 

of the different writings that compose it; and whoever has 

studied these subjects with am unbiased and inquiring mind, may, | 

_ think, be satisfied, that the truth concerning them is such, as no 
_Jew was prepared to listen to, and few indeed would have listened to 

without astonishment and wrath,” (p.320.) Let our readers weigh the 

meaning of this latter sentence. We have marked the words what 

has been called: they convey to our minds another point in the 

~ declaration of Mr. Norton’s creed of negatives, and that is, that the 

‘old testament is vot inspired. - The Jews firmly believed it was. 

Mr. Norton’s views concerning it, which views he thinks, and 

rightly, our Lord did not teach, and for not teaching which he 

kindly undertakes to make an apology for Christ, are indeed such, 
as neither the Jews, nor the apostles, nor our Savior, would any of 
‘them have listened to without astonishment and indignation. 


We will now proceed to mention a few principles of correct m- 
terpretation. ‘They are principles ; intimately connected with the 
state of the individuals own feelings; borrowing, indeed, all their 
influence from the soul of man in its relation .to God its creator. 
They are not, therefore, external, nor, strictly speaking, expository ; 
put internal, and requiring the exercise of thought, rather than the 
acquisition of any newknowledge. | 7 
One srand principle is this. ~ The bible should be interpreted im 
that manner which will most exalt God. God is seeking the hap- 
piness of the universe, and the exaltation of himself; and the full 
exhibition of his own perfections is the only way im which the 
“purposes of his infinite benevolence can be accomplished. Now 
the bible was sent into the world for this very purpose, the exhibi- 
tion of his glory ; manifestly, therefore, it-ought to be interpreted 
in that -way which will most exalt Him, no matter what the con- 
‘sequences are to man’s character. oe 


‘It should be interpreted according to its own exhibition of God, 
and not according to our previous conceptions in regard to him. 
- Those conceptions arelikely tobe wrong. But, find out the character 
of God in the bible, and you have an unerring rule of interpretation 
for the whole of it. The law of gravitation mterprets the movements 
of creation. Attempt an interpretation of them without this law, 
or with wrong conceptions of it, and we cannot so much as tell 
why an apple falls.’ “Take a wrong conception of. the character of 


t 


14 


God, any other conception than that to be gained from lis own 
: word, nd apply it to particular doctrines or events recorded in the 
. scriptures, and the consequence must inevitably be, darkness and 
perplexity. Take the right idea of God’s character, and in his light 
we see light. All things are clear, so far as they lie within our com- 
prehension, and where they lie beyond it, the soul, that has a right 
view of God, is not only -willing, but rejoices, to leave their expla-- 
nation to the eternal world, and to God’s own presence in hea-_ 
ven; assured, that though -undiscoverable by human reason, 
they, are yet in accordance with it; “ that link follows 
link by necessary consequence ; that religion soars out of the 
ken of reason, only where the eye of reason has reached its own 
horizon ; and ‘that’ faith is then but its continuation ; even as the 
day softens away into the sweet twilight, ano twilight, hashed and — 
breathless, steals into the darkness. 28 
The bible should be interpreted in that way, which exhibits aru 
God’s attributes, and not merely one or two. Here is a great. 
point. Men are willing enough to have some of God’s attributes” 
exhibited, provided they may be permitted to choose which. Let 
them nee to themselves a God of their own invention, and the idea 
of such a being would not be a painful one: they would be sure to 
make a God who indulges sin. The God a, the bible is not the © 
God of their hearts, and therefore not the God according to whose 
whole character they are willing to interpret the bible. Here is the 
secret of the.rejection of the great doctrine of the atonement, and 
an explanation of the bitter hostility which multitudes feel towards 
it. What is there 1 in it, if the human heart were friendly. to God, 
to excite any person’s ennity? The truth is, this doctrine would not 
be opposed, if it did not exhibit ald God’s moral attributes. If it~ 
brought to view only his mercy and readiness to pardon ; if it did 
not also exhibit in the most awful manner his holiness and justice ; : 
if it did not portray the evil of sin, and its infinite malignity ; if it 
displayed in God an indulgent weakness, and considered sm but a 
small evil; if it did not flash terror across the path of every lover 
of ‘sin and rejecter of Christ, shewing that to all such God is a con- 
suming fire ;—it would not excite: hostility : -every heart would re- 
ceive it, and the most abandoned with the greatest readiness ; and 
this very doctrine, now so bitterly opposed, would be more vio- 
lently applauded; it would be the praise and boast even of the 
Lord’s enemies. ‘T’his doctrme’ exhibits God’s justice as well as 
merey, and that is the reason why-men reject it ; it is because they 
dread God’s gsustice. Moreover, this despised doctrine includes 
within itself necessarily all the hard sayings of God’s word; all 
truths cluster and crowd around it, and blaze 1 in its light, Tike. an- 


oo if Biographria iter jolt p. 190.. 


. 


15." 


gels around the throne of God. Itis the sun of truth in the mor- 
al universe. oe | 
“hither, as to their Fountain, other stars 
Rag Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,” 

-and are hung up all over the glorious firmament of God’s word, dis- 
playing, in a thousand ways, man’s guilt and danger, and in a thous- 
and ways pointing and inviting to the cross of Jesus, man’s only way 
of regeneration and only hope of safety. His death shows man’s 
depravity. ‘‘ Ifone died for all, then: were all dead.” It shows 
man’s ruin. “ He came to seek and to save that which was lost.” 

His dying agonies demonstrate the evil of sin. ‘‘ He condemned 
sin in the flesh.”” They show not only the infinite love of God— 
‘God is love,”—but his infinite justice. “'That he might be 
just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” ‘They show 
what those may expect, who die in their:sins. ‘I‘hey show the re- 
ality of hell as well as the certainty of heaven. ‘They show that 
God is not trifling, neither with his own character, nor with the crea- 
tures he has made. In all this we learn the reason why the doctrine 

of the cross is so efficacious ; why it is ‘‘ the power of God unto sal- 
vation.” It is not so by any arbitrary constitution, but because it - 
displays God ; all his attributes all in contrast with the character 
of the sinner. Humanly speaking, therefore, it is infinitely adapt- 
ed to produce conviction of guilt and contrition of heart. It is an 
instrument worthy of being wielded by the omnipotent Spinit of God. 

In the denial of this doctrine there is afforded a very. clear case, 
in which a considerable number of men allow their own partial and 
distorted conceptions of God’s character.to lead them into an inter- 
_ pretation of the scriptures, which is glaring falsehood ; to. sup- 
port which, they have to resort to arts of torture; instead of criti- 
cism, applied to God’s word. The bible perplexes them. When- - 
ever they open it, there is the same unaltered, troublesome lan- _ 
suage, respecting “Jesus Christ and him crucified,” and his” 
“blood shed for the remission of sins.” They never can silence 
it, nor can all their ingenuity in the arts of critical blotting, and con- 
jecture, and torture, afford their consciences a shield against this 
truth, or set them at rest in an interpretation perfectly and manifest- 
ly opposed to the whole tenor of the bible. 


“ With all organized truth,” says Coleridge, and it is one of his 
greatest thoughts, ‘the component parts derive their significance 
from the idea of the whole. Bolingbroke removed grace, justice, 
‘and choice, from power and intelligence, and yet pretended to have 
left unimpaired the conception of a Deity. He might as consis- 
tently have paralyzed the optic nerve, and then excused himself 
by affirming that he had, however, not touched the eye.’ (The 
Friend, p. 38.) | | 


We wish the modern Unitarians would take this truth, and ap- 
oh Sa ae Pak. 3 @ 


16s 


ply it to their own most meager and defective views of the char- 

acter of God, and to their rejection of the atonement in conse- 

quence of such partial, self-indulgent contemplations of its author. 
God’s plan is perfect; it could not be otherwise; it is the equal 

manifestation of his whole character; the only plan, by which he 

could fully manifest himself. The book of nature exhibits but part 

of God’s character: Christ crucified, the whole. ‘The works of | 
God are glorious; to a holy mind there is nothing on which God 

has laid the finger of his power, that does not sparkle with his glo- _ 
ry; though it were but a withered daisy, or a particle of brier- 

down floating in the summer’s air, it speaks of Him. — Yet, till we 

behold God manifest in the flesh, the study and wonder of angels, 
and arch-angels, and beings pure from sin, who perhaps read all — 
God’s physical universe as easily as we read the pages of a book, » 
we are taught comparatively nothing ef God. The atonement is 
a display of his character, whose study will oceupy them and us for-~ 
ever and ever; and they, who despise this dectrine are, in their 
infinite ignorance and pride and wickedness, despisimg the very 
way which God Almighty has chosen for the manifestation of him- 
self to all the Universe. In throwing over it the veil of their own 
unbelief, they have shut out from their own souls what makes the 
bible a mighty book to the intellect as well as to the heart ; what 
gives it power to arrest and awe the soul of the highest archangel ; _ 
what makes ita book that the angels study ; what has made it the 
intellectual lever with which God himself; moves and heaves the 
world. Their whole system, if system it can be called, 


x 


: : “The other shape,” oe i ie 
If shape it might be called, that shape had none 
Distinguishable in. members jhint,or-bimby "oS 
_ Or substance might be called, that shadow scemed,  — 
For-each seemeéd'either,. 222 eer a 
is like a palsy to the intellect, withering, stagnant, unthinking, super-. 
ficial; and all the forms of literature itself, under that system — 
must be superficial and soul-less. ‘There is nothing in «it to stir 
either the mind or the heart. In order to exist, they must keep, 
as to the knowledge of God’s word, in an everlasting moral twilight, 
where the mind dares not’move ; for the noonday blaze of God’s 
word-expels and purges.off such error; and then the mind encoun- 
ters moral principles, instead of the flimsy sentimentalism of their - 
speculations. Like the fiend floundering through chaos, and bent 
to reduce the world to her ‘original darkness,’ they ask, 
‘Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies, 


Bordering on lights” aang 
and having found this region they rest contented; fora step on the | - 
other side into the full light of the bible would utterly blind and 
confound them. ‘The “ yeil is on their hearts ;” they see not the 


ae 


glory of the bible; they have taken away its glory; they have 
taken away what makes it spirit and life to the soul, and no wou- 
der it is to them an uninteresting volume. No wonder they are so 
ready to give up book after book, epistle after epistle, endeavoring — 
to set aside its authenticity and get rid of its authority, surrendering it 
at the slightest attack of scepticism, and tossed upon a sea of doubt 
in regard to the whole of the sacred canon. No wonder they 
deem unbelief no crime, though God himself has fixed upon it the 
seal and sentence of his abiding wrath. ‘They have taken away 
the power of the bible over the conscience and the heart, and leave 
it more lifeless than the Koran, inasmuch 4s in it there are no 
appeals to human passion, vo flattery of human selfishness. No 
wonder they care’ little for sending such a book to the hea- 
: then, nor that they think the world may. be as easily christian- 
“ized. by. a case of mathematical instruments. “hey have de- 
stroyed: the soul of the bible. It has no soul, if it has no 
atonement, no Jesus Christ and him crucified. They have 
taken away the very thing which makes the bible the power of | 
- God unto salvation. ‘They have taken away our Lord, and we 
‘know not where they have laid him ;” nor do they know them- | 
‘selves. They are an unhappy, most unhappy class; shivering in 
that gloomy, icy region, which lies between the heaven of heart- 
felt, saving faith, and the revolutionary hell of gross and. outrage- 
Pas eliee gb he : Me 
Again : the bible should be interpreted not only according to 
the whole character of God, from whom it emanated, but according 
to the whole character of man, for whom it was intended. The 
moral aspect of that’ character is depravity. ‘Therefore, it is not 
only in the light of God’s character, but with the distinct remem- 
_ brance of man’s character also, that all the truths intended for man — 
ought to be reflected on. The bible was not written for holy be- 
- ings,—that is very evident,—but for the unholy ; and with this one 
object in view, to recover them from a state of depravity and ruin, | 
and to bring them back to God. Carrying along with us this great 
truth, we have another key of vast importance to the night interpre- 
tation of the whole bible; we must expect it to speak agamst our- 
selves, and must receive its reproofs home, and give as full credit 
to its dark representations of our own character, as we are willing 
to do to its bright representations of God’s excellence. It comes 
to us as our Physician, to examine our fatal disease, and Show to 
- ourselves its terrible nature and symptoms, and to point out and 
administer the only possible remedy. If, now, we do not believe 
the truth that we have such a disease, the proposed remedy will 
seem needless, and so will all the severe discipline we are called 
upon to undergo ;. the bible will seem a.gloomy book for proposing 
it, and we shall fall to contriving such methods of interpretation as 
will keep it out of view, and shall perhaps denounce both the rem- 


16 


edy and the discipline as fanatical, and the men who believe it, and 
act accordingly, as gloomy bigots. This is the way with the Uni- 
tarians. Rejecting the doctrine of human depravity, and having no 
conceptions of the infinite malignity of sin, they consequently deny 
the need of a Divine Savior, and are thankful they can approach 


- God without 2 Mediator. To such persons, the bible, beinga vol- 


ume of disciplinary truths for the reformation of the depraved, can 
do.no good; they put themselves in their pride beyond the pale » 
of its influences. ‘ I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance.” apace aa 3 ae Sere | 
We may hear men complaining, What a gloomy system that is, 
which tells of man’s depravity, and the eternal punishment of the — 
wicked. And indeed ‘it is.a gloomy system to the depraved: it 
cannot be otherwise. ‘To those who do not love God, the bible is 
a gloomy book, and cannot be otherwise. If it were not, it would 
be a self-indulgent book, indulgent to sin, and this would be 
enough to prove it not from God.° It would no longer be the bi- 
ble. It is necessarily gloomy to the impenitent, because it con- - 
demns him; that system which is not gloomy to an impenitent 
sinner, is, for this very reason, likely to be untrue. . It is one of © 
the greatest marks against the system of liberal christianity, so 
called, that it is so much applauded by men of this world, men of 
- frivolity, gaiety, fashion, pleasure, and forgetfulness of God. It is 
indeed a very pleasant thing for such people to be told of the 
perfectibility of human nature, the pure and holy aspirations of the 
‘soul, and the needlessness of an atonement. © 
God is his own interpreter: and we must be willing to let 
God’s word interpret itself: nothing else can do it, there being 
no other authority, but what is fallible. In the light of this prin- 
ciple, we see the wisdom of revealing it in so many forms, and 
having it address itself to all the faculties of the human intellect. 
There are the old testament and the new, interpreting each other ; 
the histories, the prophecies, the gospels, the epistles. It address- 
es itself exclusively neither to the reasoning faculty, nor to the im- 
agination, nor to the judgment, nor to the affections, but to all, and 
“to each one through the medium of the other. The light of 
divine truth falls upon the prism of the human mind in every di- 
rection, and is reflected in every variety of coloring, as one side or 
another of that wonderful prism is presented to it. Add to this, 
that itspeaks to different ages of the human mind, and to different 
portions of the world; and yet to all together. One voice was to 
the age of Abraham and Moses, another to the age of David and 
Isaiah, another to the age of Paul and ‘Trajan, yet each voice was 
to all; one voice is to the oriental world, another to the EKuro- 
pean, yet each to all; and all uttering his name, above every name 
of whom “ Moses in the law, and the prophets did write.” » In all 
this there is‘no incongruity, no discrepancy, but a similarity in the 


ey 


midst of distinctions; -a reflection of the special in the general, and 
a translucence of the general through the special; a suiting of the 
sacred volume to the whole world, and a reflection in it of the face, 
not of one generation or of one people, but of all mankind through 
all ages. ‘Its contents present to us the stream of time continu- 


ous as life, and a symbol of eternity, inasmuch as the past. and 


future are virtually contained in the present. According, there- 


fore, to our relative position on its banks, the sacred history be- 


comes prophetic, the sacred prophecies historical, while the power 
and substance of both inhere in its laws, its promises, and its com- 
minations.”** ‘Truth in the bible is the voice of God speaking to 


- all time ; it is truth for the human heart, not for one age; it is the 


mirror, in which not the much talked of spirit of the age is re- 
flected, but in which mankind may see themselves under all cir- 
cumstances, through all time. == , ares 

No one of the truths of the bible in reality clashes with another, 
and it should be read with the remembrance, that if at any time 
they seem contradictory, the contradiction is probably in the © 
mind of the reader. . It should be read with ihe remembrance, 


_ that the sacred writers were not polemics, nor ever feared that b 
-giving strong prominence to one doctrine, they should lead their 


reader to undervalue or neglect another. They always treated 
with energy of language and ardor of feeling the subject immediately 
under consideration, as if the mind were exclusively filled with it ; 

and they sometimes presented. one view of it, sometimes another. 

Had this always been borne in mind, Paul and James would never 

have been thought contradictory.. We cannot help quoting a pas- 

sage from Burke, which completely conveys the.true principle of 
interpretation on this subject. It is to be found in his-‘ Appeal 

from the new to the old whigs.’’ ace aes ~ 


«As any one of the great members of this constitution happensto be 


endangered, he that is a friend to all of them, chooses and presses the top- 


ics necessary for the support of the part attacked, with all the strength, 
the earnestness, the vehemence, with all the powers of stating, of argu- 
ment, of coloring, which he happens to possess, and which the case de- 
mands. He is not to embarrass the minds of his hearers, or to incumber 
or overlay his speech, by. bringing into view at once, as if he were 
reading an academic lecture, all that may and ought, when a just occa~ 
sion presents itself, tobe said in favor of the other members. At that 
time they are out of the court; there is no question concerning them. 
Whilst he opposes his defense on the part where the attack is’ made, he 
presumes, that for his regard to the just rights of all the rest, he has 
credit in every candid mind. He ought not to apprehend that his rais- 


ing fences about popular privileges this day, will infer that he ought on 


the next to concur with those who would pull down the throne: because 


aa Se a See 


* Stateman's Manual. aa 


20. 


on the next he defends the throne, it ought not to be supposed that — 
has abandoned the rights of the people.” ee : 
‘A man who,-among various objects of his equal regard, 1s secure ote 
* some, and fall of anxiety for the fate of others, is apt to go to mucn 
greater lengths in his preference of the object of his immediate solici- 
tude, than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circurastanced often 
seems to undervalue, to. wilify, almost to reprobate and disown, those . _ 
that are out of danger.” This is the voice of nature and truth, and not 
‘of inconsistency and false pretence. - The danger of any thing very. 
dear to us, removes for the moment, every other affection from the mind. .° 
When Priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body of his Hec- 
tor, he tepels with indignation, and drives, from him with a thousand re- 
proaches, bis surviving sons, who, with an officious piety crowded about. 
him: to’ offer their assistance. A good critic, (there Is no better than 
Mr. Fox,) would say that this is a master-stroke, and marks a deep 
understanding of nature in the father of poetry. He would despise’ a 
Zoilus, who would conclude from this passage, that Homer meant to re- 
present this man of affliction as hating, or being indifferent or cold in his 
affections to the poor relics of his house, or-that he preferred a dead car- 
cass to his living children.” - eerie aE “3 


‘Another principle of interpretation, drawn from the bible itself, 
‘5 that the same credit is due to the words of the apostles as to the 


words of Christ. {tis no uncommon thing, either in books or 


conversation, to find the deniers of our Lord’s divinity and atone- 


ment, expressing great reverence for all that fell from his lips, but 
evading and denying the authority of what you urge from. the ‘in- 
~ spired apostles. Now this is a manifest: inconsistency. In’ the 
first place, it is on the authority of the apostles only, that we re- 
ceive the words of Christ ; and in the next place, we must either - 
at once deny the inspiration of the apostles, or else acknowledge that — 
their words are also and equally the words of their Master. Jesus 
himself said to them, ‘“ He that heareth you, heareth me ; and he 
that despiseth you, despiseth me ; and he that despiseth me, des- . 
-piseth him that sent mee’. “As my Father hath sent me, even so - 
send I you.” “ Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” «He will guide 
_you into all truth.” Well might they say, therefore, “We have 
the mind of Christ.” “The word of God, which ye heard of us, 
_ we received not as the word of man, but as it is in truth the word 
of God.” “ He, therefore, that despiseth, despiseth not man, but 
God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit.” “ We are of 
God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God 
heareth us not. Heresy KNOW WE THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND 
ppp spirit oF ERROR.’ We desire nothing more than that our 
readers should apply this solemn test to Unitarianism, im respect to 
the discredit its advocates seek to cast upon the sacred writers, es- 
pecially, the apostles of our Lord and Savior. ee 

Again: the scriptures ought manifestly to be studied and anter- 
preted, in particular portions, with the remembrance of, and. ref- 


ae 21 Bon 


erence to, their general harmony. We need to view them, there- 
fore, from a position of sight and feeling very elevated. There is 
a great and glorious harmony in the bible, which those only can in 
any measure appreciate, who leok upon it with an enlarged and 
comprehensive view. We may learn much from the analogy of 
nature. God’s plan is perfeet m both worlds, natural and .moral ; 
but all things were not made for the inspection of one particular. - 
mind, or the range of one particulir-vision : what is beauty to the 
human. vision, would be deformity*to the microscopic eye. What 
_We sometimes think defects, we find afterwards, ina more compre- 
“hensive view, not only are lost sight of as defects, but’add to the 
symmetry and glory of the scene. When we look at a great paint- 
ing, if we go nearer than the point of vision, in which the view of 
each part is sustained by the conception of the whole, the paint- 
ing will inevitably Jose its grandeur, and appear defective, though 
perhaps perfect-in its kind. A fly, sitttag om one of the stones in | 
Westminster Abbey, micht be soliloquizing on the roughness and 
deformity of his resting place; while many luman beings are admi- 
“ring the venerable grandeur of the pile, 
Let us take an illustration from nature. We have had the hap- 


NS 


"© piness, several times, of 1 isiting mount Holyoke in Massachusetts. 


The scenery of Amherst is very beautifuly even in detail ; but ex- 
amined in detail, there are prospects not peculiarly attractive, and: 
features that appear unsightly to the eyé. It would be easy for a- 
caviler, even in regard: to the works of nature, to ask of what pos- 
sible use or beauty is that barren sand bank, or this huge missha- 
pen rock: it would be easy for such a being to ask the like gues- 
tion in regard to minute portions of God’s word. But we found, as 
we traveled up the side of tW@ mountain, that every imperfection, 
“or what we had at-first concluded to be such, had gradually ‘dis- 
appeared, or was evidently adding, as we advanced, to the increas- 
ing glory of.the view. Wherever we stopped, and turned to 
gaze through ‘the forest on the expanding region below, every 
- successive prospect, as. we rose higher and higher, exhibited those 
apparent imperfections changing into beauty-; and when at length 
we found ourselves upon the summit, it was truly-a scene of un- 
mingled beauty and grandeur. It was the sublime of loveliness. 
Towards the South, an almost interminable range of mountain el- 
evations sink behind each other, withdrawing the vision to such a 
distance, that heaven and earth are at length indistinguishable, and. 
blended together in the atmosphere, and all along beneath them the 


broad valley ‘of the Connecticut reposes in the light. ‘To the — 


West, what an amphitheater of forests and steepled villages and cul-. 

tivated farms, rises from the meadows at the foot of the mountain, 

and recedes, terrace after terrace, to the horizon ! Directly be- 

neath us, glides ‘at his sweet will,’ the pleasant river, a silver 

thread, it is so far below, through forests of chesnuts, and fields of 
| 1 


¢ 


ee Biss Sek 


he trinity are trul yludicrous. For bundreds 


hearts and consciences of men >. What is it, that not merely in 


- Jesus Christ and-him crucified; that system which exhibits God’s 
holy law, and its awful penalty, God? s infinite holines and man’s » 
depravity, and God’s infinite love ina divine Savior provided for the 

perishing and guilty soul. What other system has’ ever had the 


i 


_ Jeast power over the hearts and consciences of men? Innumerable 
other systems have been tried: every age has had its own. . The 
spirit of error has risen ‘in ten thousand forms, and in all instances 


ca 


2S. 


has pretended. to ‘build upon the bible. From Nicolaitans down 
to Unitarians, multitudes innumerable, al! Milton’s fallen demons, 
wandering over the earth in the shape of bible truth, 
ie a Thick as autumnal leaves that ‘strew the brooks 
oy Tn Valbombrosa——— ty Be 
» All these, and mere come flocking,” 


seekmg rest,-and finding none. — Their errors have risen, and are 
rising, and will continue to rise and disappear one after the other, 
‘accomplishing each in turn, the grand object of the father of lies, 
to vex the church.of God and lure souls to perdition;—rising out of 
‘the wiekednéss and ignorance of the human heart, as fiery exhala- 
tions rise from putrid marshes, t0 dance and burn and go out again 
in the darkness. But where is there one of them that has proved 
the power of God unto salvation? Where has the bible been’ 
preached in any other way, thanasanexhbibition of Christ and him 
crucified, without failing to move the human soul a particle towards 
its God? It is this system, and no other, that has laid hold with 
the erasp of omnipotence on the human mind, and no matter how: 
 feebly preached, no matter by what contemptible instrument so- 
-ever, has gone down into the human soul, roused its spiritual en- 
~_ergies, broken up the great depths of feeling, unsealed the pro- 
foundest fountains of the being, and. changed the whole existence 
from earthly to heavenly, from sin to ‘holiness, from self to God. 
‘It has done this in multitudes of instances, when the mightiest ex- 
ertions of the human intellect would have been lavished in vain. 
It has done it for the most perfectly abject and degraded of the 
_ human race, by whom the. exhibitions of the wisdom of this world 
~ would have been gazed at with stupid bratality. [tis the intellect of - 
~ God only. that can reach, inspire, raise and renew such a being. 
And the preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified does it, be- 
cause it ts the intellect of God; and, though denied, and sneered 
at, and esteemed foolisliness by the fearful presumption ‘of some, ’ 
itis, in reality, the mightiest exhibition of the intellect of the Infinite 
Jehovah. ' No wonder it takes hold on the soul; no wonder it can” 
do this, when the art of man is utterly confounded. It is the 
power of God ; it is the arm of his moral omnipotence ! ae 
What would a Greenlander ora Hottentot say to the specula- 
tions of Priestley. or of Dr. Channing? Let'us figure to ourselves 
preachers of this stamp going to exhibit their refinements, their 
“taste, their sentimentality, toa tribe of Esquimaux or a horde 
of wandering Tartars; going to preach to them about the perfec- © 
tibility. and dignity of haman nature, the pure and holy aspirations 
of the’soul, the innocency of unbelief, the mere human character 
of Jesus Christ, the absurdity of an atonement, the needlessness 
* of a mediator between God and man! Would such a system. 
touch the heart? The thought is a monstrous absurdity. There 


* 


ay - 5. > oe 


gee 


is nothirig in it that can stir the soul in the least degree, or stike a 
solitary chord in the recesses of man’s spiritual being, or have any - 
other effect whatever than aniceberg, oracontinent of icebergs would 
have upon our whole atmosphere, should it move down from the 
polar: seas, and take up its station along our’ coast, tos remain. 
- there moored for centuries! » If this freezing, desolate negation of 
godliness be true christianity, the sovereign, — vaunted remedy for 
infidelity, why do not its adherents try it for the conversion of the 
world, and prove its truth by its powerful effects g If this is the 
power of God unto salvation, why do they not obey the command 
of Christ, and go into all the world to preach thts gopel to every. 
creature? Why leave the evangelization of the world to be effect- 
ed by the preaching of that very. doctrine, and that very system of 
doctrines, which they cast out as absurd, and even ridiculous,—a li-- 
bel upon God’s eharacter. If they have a better way of exhibiting 
God’s character, a moral talisman of mightier energy than the ex- 
hibition of Jesus Christ and him crucified ; above all, if they deem 
‘the doctrine of atonement, and the truths that shine in its light, a 
perversion of the bible, and the fictions of gloomy men, bent up-. 
on reducing the world to spiritual bondage, —why, in the name of all 
that concerns man’s best interests, do they not send to the perph-. 
ing, imploring nations, their,own LiseRaL cHrRisTiaNrty, this last, 
best gift of heaven to man, and let us behold it working. its won- 
ders of regenerating mercy.on our ruined race Ah, liberal. min- 
ded men! your own experience has taught you, that the spirit of 
a missionary forms no part or principle of your systema; nor of any 


- system, that does not bear, written all over it, the loved: and ado- _ 


red name of Jesus Christ and him crucified, and that does not 
breathe throughout, the memory of the Lamb of God, that “ ta- 
keth away the sin of the world.” A-missionary’s peculiar emphat-~ 
ic designation, his title of honor and love, is and has been all the 
world over, Missionary of THE CROSS... 
' This blasphemed system of religious truth—Jesus. Christ and - 
him crucified—is the system, in the exhibition of which the bible. 
has exerted its most powerful effect on the intellect as well as the 
heart of men. In the light of this truth, Professor Norton’s assu- 
med intellectual superiority over the doctrine of the trinity, and his” 
grave conclusion that it is expunged from the ereed of. all’ who 
make any pretensions to intelligence, are very amusing. Perhaps_ 
he has forgotten the names of Lord Bacon and Henry More ; and. 
probably the “Halls, the 'Taylors, the Coleridges, and the Fosters, 
are in his view men of very weak intellect, by the side of Dr. 
Channing. — Pe dee et Le ie ae ae age as 
_ The truth is a-great one, and it were well if this age would re- 
flect upon it, that the best period in the literature of Great Britain, . 
-the period in which that nation appears, for her intellectual power, 


Aig 


25 

like a giant among the. nations, is eo one in which her. noblest 
minds were imbued and penetrated with the evangelical system of 
religious truth, the system that meludes the ideas of a holy God, 
anda holy law with an adequate sanction ; the ideas of a -auilty 
world, an atoning Savior, and a regenerating Spirit; the system that 
exhibits both the Cross and the ‘Frmity. ‘Then men were abundant, 
whose learning was not only of a gigantic aspect, but whose love 
to Christ crucified would have adorned the age of primitive apos- 
tolic piety. And when Christ crucified began to be left out of 
view, and a spiritual death, something like that of Unitarianism, 
was creeping over the nation, then was it that giants like Howe, 
Cudworth, and Leighton, began to be succeeded by the Tillot- 
sons, the Seckers, “and the: Seeds ;- and together with the depar- 
ture of the national mind from, the spiritual principles that center in 
the atonement, yl be measured the dpc hae of the nation im in- 
_tellectual energy. oe 

“It is nothing bie he eects intellectaal ay moe aii of 
the system of the cross, that has produced in the literature of the 
“English tongue, such books as the Paradise Lost, Butler’s Analo- 
gy, the Pilorim’s S- Progress, Edwards on the Will, the. Saint’s 
Rest, the Blessedness of the Righteous, Cowper’s aap ask, Henry 
Martyn’ s Memoirs; and such writers of hymns as Watts and 
Charles Wesley, almost the only individuals who: have been em- 
inently successful in this difficult species of composition. Now, 
think of the system of liberal christianit ty.as producing such a 
work as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s’ Progress !!- ‘The combined en- 
ergies of all the minds that ever were deluded by that fatal system, 
would be inadequate to the production ofa. solitary. Hage, se 

Again: A great g guide to the true. interpretation of God’s word, 
is to be found in ‘the. opinion of those, who are. lonown to hove 
communed. most. closely with God. -They are most likely to. dis- 
cover and know, ‘without mistake, God’s precise: meaning in the 
words he uses. ‘This is the dictate of true wisdom, and not of 
superstition ; we act. according to it in the things of this world.” 
All men, who-have come to. such greatness as to ‘be considered au-~ 
thorities among” their fellow-men, ‘have at one time or another had 
the meaning of their words, even of their written phrases, dispu- 


- ted.: Now, to whom wou!d all most readily : repair for a decision of. 


the disputed point? Would it not. be to those, if any such could 
-be found, who had been intimately. acquainted with the character 
and habits, both intellectual and moral, of the author in question ; 
who had enjoyed his intimate. friendship, and known the workings 
of his mind, and his opinions on many* subjects. To take an in- 
dividual instance for illustration. James Madison was one amongst 
the framers. of the constitution. He was a friend to Washington, 


and knew the: views and feelings of almost all his fellow laborers. 


20 - 


It is therefore justly and with great wisdom, that we apply to this 
living oracle, to know what the constitution means, in phrases whose. 
meaning is now made the subject of dispute. Eee ae 
We may learn a lesson from this im regard to God’s word. There‘ . 
have been men, especially since the reformation, who have gilded 

the gloom of the world with the light of a livmg and radiant piety 
men of great and acknowledged wisdom, who have lived very. 


near to God, whoare known and confessed, even by their enemies, to 

have maintained a close walk with him, and to have arrived at such 
a degree of holiness, as will render. their names illustrious forever. 
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and such men 
have participated, as it were, in God’s counsels ; have ‘been admit- 
ed to the honor of knowing the secrets of his mind; and are of all. 
others the least likely to be mistaken in their interpretation of 
God’s word. Let us. mention a few of their names. - Leighton, 
Usher, Baxter, Hall, Taylor; Howe, ‘the Henrys, Owen, Hale, . 

‘Sir Robert Boyle, Watts, Doddridge, Newton, Cecil, Bunyan, 
Henry Martyn, David Biainard, President Edwards, Whitefield, 

. Payson. ‘Thiese are native names ; we have not gone beyond our 
“own language. These and multitudes of others who. walked with 
God through life, trusted in Christ as an Almighty Savior, and loved 
God’s word, because it spake to them of Jesus Christ, and him cra-- 
cified’: it revealed to them, not a catalogue of Unitarian negatives, 

- but the doctrine of the Trinity, and the System of the Cross. ‘These 
all died in faith ;” they found in the bible an atoning Savior. We 
would give more for'an opinion on this subject from a man like Da- 
vid Brainard, than for all human arguments else... oe oc, 
JoWe have spoken of the harmony of the bible: One word in re- 

“gard to its whole spiritual tenor, according to:which it should be 

Interpreted in particular passages,—it is manifestly from beginning 
- to end one of. solemn warning. “The beings it addresses are evi- 

dently. considered by it m. peril of their souls forever ; and its 
whole tenor looks to a day of judgment, and an endless retribution 
of happiness or misery. The words of particular passages innu- 
merable declare the same thing, with positive and pungeut appli- 
cation to every individual conscience. In putting any different 
construction upon them, we have both to wrest the particular pas- 
sage from its plain and inevitable signification, and to do equal vio- 
lence to the argument gathered from the’ whole tenor of the scrip- 
tures. ‘The very object of the bible is to tell men their danger of 
-perdition, and to point out the way whereby they may avoid it. 
Its professed aim and design, and the whole purpose: for which it » 
was sent into the world, is to save men from hell, and to raise them > 
to heaven; and in view of all. this, what shall we call the con- 
duct of those, who, in the very face of all the awful descriptions 
and warnings of the ‘bible, would gravely persuade us, that there 1s — 


“Bat 


ai 


no hell! Ifthe bible has mot a correspondency in the eternal 
world to its descriptions and warnings and imagery, if they are de- 
scriptions. without the correlative realities, of all the books that ever 
- were published, it is the falsest. Such a book would indeed be a 
marvel and iniracle of falsehood ; it would require superhuman 
powers to’construct it. Py ee eR ees, aaa 
The last principle we shall mention, and one that lies at the foun- 
dation of all others is this : The bible should be interpreted with 
right feelings of heart, in the exercise of penitence, humility, 
faith and love.. All the principles we have specified are in subor- 
dination to this: a heart friendly to God is the only right interpreter 
‘either of his works or word. And this is what our Savior meant 
when he said; “If any.man will do my wwill, he shall know of the 
doctrine, whether it be of God.” A sinful heart can have no right 
views of God, and of course will have defective views of his word. 
‘Sin distorts the judgment, and overturns the mind’s balance on all 
moral subjects, far more than even the best of men are aware. 
‘There is, there car be, no true reflection of God or his truth from 
the bosoni-darkened with guilt, from the heart at enmity agamst 
Hm That man swill-always.look at God through the medium of 
"his own selfishness, and at God’s: word through the coloring of his. 
own wishes, prejudices, and fears. _ A heart that loves the Savior, 
and rejoices in God as its sovereign, reflects back.in calmness the 


“perfect view of his character, which it-inds in his word. Behold, 
‘on the*borders of a mountaiir lake, tlie reflection of the scene above 
received into the bosom of the lake below. See that crag project- 
ing, the wild flowers that hang out from it, and bend as if to gaze 
at thei own forms in the water beneath. . Observe that plat of 
oreen grass above, that tree springing from the cleft, and over all 
the quiet sky, with its sailing?clouds, reflected in all its softness and . 
depth from the lake’s steady surface. _ How: perfect the reflection ! . 
Does itnotyseem as if there were two heavens ? And just as per- 
fect, and clear, and free from confusion and perplexity, is the re- 
flection of God’s character and the truths of his word, from the 
“quietness of the heart that loves the Savior, and is. seeking God’s | 
RT Pag SN Maes 2 Seg honda o Bo) ei 
Now look again. .'The wind is on the lake, and drives forward its 
waters in crested “and inpetuous waves, angry andturbulent, Where 
is that sweet image ? There is no change aboye.. ‘The sky is clear, 
the cra projectsas boldly, the flowers look just as sweet in their un- 
* conscious simplicity ; bat below, banks, trees and skies, are all mingled 
in confusion. ‘There is just as much confusion in every unholy mind’s | 
idea of God andhis blessed word. God and histruth are always clear, 
always the same; .butthe passions of men fill their own hearts with 
obscurity and turbulence; their depravity ism itself obscurity ; and 
through all this perplexity and wilful ignorance, their souls troubled, © 


Fo - 


we 


es , 4% = | 


like the stormy s sea; with restless conflicts of passion, they samen 
that God is just sucht a being as they behold him, that their hearts 
give back the true reflection, and that they ‘themselves. are very - 
good beings in his sight. We have heard of a defect in the bodily . 
vision, which represents all objects upside down ; but that man would 
certainly be called insane, who under the ‘anand of this misfor- 
tune, should so blind his understanding, as‘to believe and assert, 
that men walk on their heads and that the trees grow aown wards: 
Is is not a much greater insanity for men, who in their hearts. do 
not love God, and in their lives sult and disobey him, to give 
credit to their: own perverted representations. of him and his word ? 
As long as men will contmue to look at. God’s truth through the 
medium of their own pride and prejudice, so long they will have 
mistaken views of God and eternity, and are > deceiving their own 
soul into endless ruin. ,' 


Of what infinite importance: ton man’s best i interests is the Sin a ic 


terpretation of God’s holy word! A mistake here is a mistake for 
eternity. It is so because the bible is so plaina. book, that he who 
» .¢ Tins may read, and.if his heart were right with” Gody could not 
fail to ‘know pr ecisely what God means. “Therefore, whoever takes 
up witha deceitful interpretation, and suffers himself to be lulled 
with error, will be found at the great day of judgment to have done 
it, because he would —rather listen to the dictates of his. depraved 
heart: than to the voice of conscience enlightened by God’s trath: 
Followers ef Dr..Channing! beware! beware | Unbelief is not 
innocent; error 7s crime. There would be uo error-were there no 
depravity ; it is therefore infinitely dangerous.. And remember: 
*. You go into eternity, not with: Dr. Channing’ S Discourses, or Pro- 
fessor Norton’s Statement of Reasons for not ‘Believing, as your 
judge ; but, with the bible’ in your Hands, and its declarations of — 
your own character and destiny plain. before you. fh the light of 
this book, there are no shadowy -and- uncertain’ shapes flitting on 
the interminable ‘shore of the ocean you are soon. tc “sail ; “the. 
scenes that will receive your coming, and surround you ‘forever, 
» are revealed «with such fullness of. splendor, in characters of such’ 


not be better known, if it were marked by the path of the lightning, 
~~ on the vaulted sky above you.» Oh:beware ! Iftyow. take not re- 
fuge in ‘Christ, youare lost, lost. <° Dhere as no, other name under 
heaven, given among men, whereby we: must be ea e ie 


SARS Ns 
eo ' = 


impressive, unalterable, deep-traced truth, that your duty could — | 


